Previously some scientists had cited the complexity of the Flores stone tools as evidence that the hobbit-like people were diseased modern humans rather than a unique species.

Both sets of toolsfrom the Liang Bua cave and the older Mata Menge archaeological siteshare hallmarks of simple but sophisticated flaking and shaping, according to Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at the Australian National University in Canberra.

At 800,000 years old, the Mata Menge tools are "way too old to have been made by modern humans," Brumm said in an email.

The earliest evidence for modern humans is from 195,000 years ago in Ethiopia, he adds.

"Our interpretation of the similarities between the Mata Menge and Liang Bua technologies is that a single hominin lineage made the same kinds of stone tools on Flores for over 700,000 years, probably a lot longer," Brumm said.

Hominins, or hominids, include recent humans as well as extinct ancestral and related forms.